About

Online behavioural advertising - which is also sometimes called "interest-based advertising" - uses information collected across multiple web sites that you visit in order to predict your preferences and to show you ads that are most likely to be of interest to you.

It’s safe, anonymous and designed to bring you ads that are relevant to your interests. To enforce this practice, The Interactive Advertising Bureau of New Zealand (IABNZ) has worked with industry representatives to develop the New Zealand Best Practice Guideline for Online Behavioural Advertising.

Industry Representatives

What is online behavioural advertising?

Online behavioural advertising (also known as interest-based advertising) is a way of serving advertisements on the websites you visit and making them more relevant to you and your interests. Shared interests are grouped together based upon previous web browsing activity and web users are then served advertising which matches their shared interests. In this way, advertising can be made as relevant and useful as possible.

How does it work?

Imagine you are planning a holiday to Rome. You visit a website’s section on Rome and view a few articles about places to stay and visit. On a future visit online, while reading an article about your favourite football team, you see an advertisement for a 2-for-1 dinner in Rome or an offer for discounted car hire in Rome. You receive these specially tailored ads because you, and other people like you, have shown an interest in Rome. This can enhance your web experience reducing the number of ads that aren’t of interest to you.

How is my privacy protected?

Anonymous data about your browsing activity is collected and assigned an advertising category (for example, holidays). If this infers a particular interest, a cookie is placed in your browser which determines what online behavioural advertising you receive.

No personal information is collected or used for online behavioural advertising.

Where personal information (like registration data) is used, you will have been told about it in the website’s privacy policy when you registered for that service. You always have a choice as to whether to benefit from more relevant advertising or not and where personal information is used, you will have given your consent.

The way in which organisations collect, use, handle and keep secure your personal information is governed by New Zealand Privacy laws.

You can control which cookies you accept or refuse (see five top tips) and the company collecting and using the data will also have a way for you to decline behavioural advertising.